Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II (28 page)

Paul Delacroix sat on the other side of the oak-plank table and nodded.

Jules van Acker stood at the cast-iron woodstove and poured himself another cup of coffee, fi lling the chipped pottery mug to the brim. The farmhouse kitchen was small with a rough pine fl oor and stucco walls but Marchal’s wife, Antoinette, had brightened it up with frilly lace curtains and a glass cupboard fi lled with blue and yellow hand-painted china. The men used the pottery cups. Van Acker took a sip of the bitter coffee and said, “
Je comprends,
Leon.

We’ve been through it over and over. There’s no other way in. The main gate on the south side is always guarded. The west side is blocked by the coal pile and the conveyor system, and the east side is all swamp. You’ve got to go in from the north.”

“But it’s wide open, no cover at all,” Marchal said.

Delacroix looked at his friend. “It’ll be a moonless night, Leon. Everyone will be wearing dark clothing. We’ll just have to move quickly.”

Marchal studied the large sheet of paper another time and rubbed his forehead. Acquiring the plans of the German’s new railroad refueling and repair depot had been a major coup that Willy Boeynants had somehow pulled off.

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Douglas W. Jacobson

Marchal knew how important this was. Van Acker had been informed in a message from Leffard that it was an opportunity the leaders of the White Brigade and the SOE in London did not want to miss.

Van Acker stepped over to the table and put a beefy hand on Marchal’s shoulder. “How are your supplies?” he asked.

Marchal didn’t look up. “We have plenty for this. There were fi fty kilos of plastique in the last drop—the new material, PE-2. That’s not the problem.”

Van Acker was silent for a moment. “You know how critical this is, Leon.”

Marchal stood up and walked over to the stove. “
Oui, oui, bien sûr.
And the location is ideal, remote, away from everything. The Germans never learn.

They always try and hide these things.” He grabbed the coffeepot and fi lled his cup. “Everything’s fi ne except for that fi rst hundred meters.” He took a sip and looked at van Acker. “Don’t worry, Jules, we’ll get it done. Tell Leffard and Boeynants that we’ll handle it.”

The next evening was windy and cold, not uncommon for early December in the Ardennes region of Belgium, although they had not as yet had any snow.

The men who gathered in Marchal’s barnyard shuffl ed and stamped their feet to keep warm. They passed around a bottle of
pequet
to take the chill away.

Marchal looked over the group as he pulled open the heavy wooden barn door and they stepped inside to get out of the wind. There were seven of them: he and Paul Delacroix, their sons Jean-Claude and Henri, as well as Gaston, and two men from Bastogne known only by their fi rst names, Richard and Franc. Richard was a big, loud man with a thick, black beard who cleared away a corner of the workbench, challenging the two boys to an arm-wrestling match. Franc was more like Gaston, quiet and serious.

Marchal had served with elite, professional soldiers in his years with the Chasseurs Ardennais, but he had no reservations about this band of tough, solid men. Though their “uniforms” consisted of a hodgepodge of heavy woollen coats, leather work boots, felt hats and berets, they were determined anti-Nazi partisans. Brought together by Leffard and van Acker, Marchal had led the group on four previous missions and would trust his life to any of them. Jean-Claude and Henri, already toughened by the train derailment in September, would learn much from these men.

Van Acker and his assistant from the butcher shop arrived a few minutes Night of Flames

185

later with a car and a truck. The men loaded their supplies and piled in.

The two vehicles traveled by different routes, arriving an hour later at a deserted farm near the small village of Beho. The refueling station was less than fi ve kilometers away, but, trekking overland through dense forests and over hills, Marchal had calculated it would be close to midnight before they arrived.

Marchal and Delacroix took the lead, carrying the packages of PE-2 in their backpacks. They each carried a Colt 45 and three hand grenades. Marchal also carried a Walther P-38 he had taken from a Wehrmacht offi cer in 1940, then fi tted with a silencer. Jean-Claude and Henri followed, carrying a heavy-duty bolt cutter, a sledgehammer, folding shovels, fl ashlights and extra ammunition in their packs. Gaston, Richard and Franc brought up the rear. Franc and Gaston each carried Sten guns and hand grenades, detonator cords and timing pencils, food and water. Richard lugged the larger Bren gun and the folding bipod.

A half hour before midnight, they came to the crest of a hill. Below them, on a fl at plain, a half-kilometer to the south, lay the refueling depot. Marchal leaned against a tree and stared down at the vast fenced-in yard. It was larger than he had imagined.

Four sets of railroad tracks entered the depot from the south, through the main gates. A water tower stood in the middle of the yard with two sets of tracks passing on either side. At the north end of the yard, closest to their position, loomed the massive repair building. Along the entire west side sprawled an enormous coal pile and conveyor system. A dirt road ran north and south the length of the yard in front of the conveyor system. The east side of the yard was fl at and grassy with a few small buildings, then gradually fell off into a marsh.

A four-meter-high chain-link fence with rolled barbed wire along the top surrounded the entire facility. Just as Marchal had seen on the plans, the fence along the north side was set back from the repair building about a hundred meters.

Marchal slipped the pack off his back and set it on the ground. He turned to the group. “We’ll stop here and rest.”

Franc opened his pack and passed out thick slices of bread and cheese.

Delacroix took a pair of binoculars out of his pack, stood up and looked 186

Douglas W. Jacobson

toward the depot. There were spotlights shining down into the yard, mounted on the top of the water tower and on the roof of the repair building. He spent several minutes slowly scanning back and forth, muttering
Mon dieu
under his breath. He turned toward Marchal. “There’s a guardhouse at the main gate with at least three or four guards hanging around. I also spotted a pair of guards patrolling the west side, on the road in front of the conveyors. There appears to be a railcar parked near the water tower, but most of the view is blocked by the repair building.”

He turned back toward the depot, this time scanning carefully the long back wall of the repair building and the open ground between it and the fence. After a few minutes he handed the binoculars to Marchal.

As Marchal studied the terrain, another set of guards came into view, patrolling the north fence line. They carried submachine guns, and one of them led a large black Doberman on a chain leash. The importance of this facility to the German war effort became evident when Marchal saw their uniforms.

These weren’t Feldgendarmes; they were Wehrmacht soldiers.

Marchal continued to study the area for another few minutes then set the glasses down. He looked at Delacroix and nodded. Marchal turned toward the rest of the group and pointed toward the northeast corner of the yard. “There’s a narrow area from the northeast corner of the repair building extending all the way to the fence that’s shaded from the lights. That’s the spot where we’ll have to cross the fi eld. There’s a set of double doors in the center of the north wall of the repair building. We’ll have to get across the fi eld to the building and over to the doors, open the lock and get inside during the time that the guards are out of sight.”

Marchal picked up the binoculars and handed them to Jean-Claude, pointing to a fl at area between two pine trees halfway down the hill. “Make your way down to that spot and monitor the movement of the guards. We need to know how much time we’ve got to get across the fi eld and into the building.”

Marchal looked at Richard. “Go with him and set up the Bren gun. From that spot you should be able to cover the whole north end of the yard and the east side of the building. It’s as good a fi eld of fi re as we’re going to get.” He glanced around at the others. “The rest of us will make our way along the ridge and down to the fence in the shaded area.” Marchal turned back to Jean-Claude and looked his son in the eye. “As soon as you know the time interval, come down and join us at the fence.”

Night of Flames

187

• • •

Delacroix and his son, Henri, began snipping the chain-link fence with the heavy bolt cutter. It took three minutes to cut a slit large enough, and then the six men slithered through, one-by-one on their stomachs, and sprinted across the fi eld.

Staying against the side of the building, out of the light, the group moved down to the large sheet steel doors. The handles were chained and padlocked.

Gaston pulled a small pouch out of his pack, removed a set of picks from it and gripped the padlock.

Marchal fi dgeted as he watched the man insert one pick after another, searching for the right one as calmly as though he were fi xing a watch in the comfort of his home. Marchal glanced at his own watch—seven minutes had passed.

Another three minutes passed, and Gaston was still selecting picks and trying the lock. Marchal reached into his knapsack, removed the Walther P-38

and attached the silencer. Another two minutes and he would make his way to the northwest corner of the building, wait for the guards and shoot them as they rounded the corner.

The lock clicked open.

Marchal took a deep breath and stuck the Walther under his belt.

Delacroix grabbed one of the large handles and pulled the door open just far enough for all of them to slip inside.

The cavernous room was dimly lit by a few bare bulbs high in the ceiling.

It smelled of machine oil and sulfur. Delacroix pushed the door closed, leaving a slight gap.

Marchal removed the Walther from his belt and handed it to his son. He gave Jean-Claude a hard look. “
Soyez courageux
. If those guards stop to inves-tigate, you know what to do.”

Marchal led the group away from the door and spread the plans on the dirt fl oor near a giant steam locomotive parked on a turntable. He pulled a 188

Douglas W. Jacobson

fl ashlight from his pack. Alternately looking at the plans and shining the light around the room, Marchal spotted several huge lathes and drill presses. Along one wall was a welding booth almost ten meters wide with a bank of acetylene tanks chained to the wall.

Marchal turned to Gaston, who had removed several packages of PE-2

from his pack and was selecting detonator cords and timing pencils. “You and Henri set the charges inside the building,” he said.

Gaston nodded and began preparing the charges.

Marchal, Delacroix and Franc gathered their packs and sprinted toward the other end of the building. They found a small service door, which led out to the main yard. It was unlocked.

Marchal pushed the door open. They were in luck. On the track closest to the building was another locomotive attached to a coal car. He scanned the area then ran to the locomotive followed by Delacroix and Franc.

Marchal peeked around the side of the locomotive toward the coal pile on the west side of the yard. The main framework of the conveyor system was about thirty meters to the west, across the narrow dirt road, but it was bathed in light from the spotlight at the top of the water tower. The area was wide open and in plain view from the main guard shack.

He cursed to himself. They would have to forget the conveyor. But the locomotive and its coal car extended all the way from the repair garage to the water tower. One of the four steel legs supporting the tower was in the dark, shaded by the coal car. The three men squatted next to the locomotive, and Marchal broke out the remaining packets of explosives, handing three of them to Franc who crawled off toward the tower.

Marchal and Delacroix began fi xing the explosive charges to the locomotive. When they were fi nished, Marchal waved at Franc over by the water tower. Franc activated the timing pencil on the charges he had fi xed to the leg of the tower, then crawled back to the locomotive, joining Marchal and Delacroix.

Marchal checked his watch. He waited two minutes then crushed the glass ampoules at the top of the timing pencils. It would take twenty minutes for the sulfuric acid released inside the tube to corrode the steel wires holding back the plungers. Then the detonators would explode the charges. They would have to be well out of the yard and back up the hill by that time.

The three men slipped back into the repair building and headed for the Night of Flames

189

double doors. Marchal waved at Gaston who activated the fi fteen-minute timing pencils on the charges he had set and then joined them.

When he got to the double doors, Marchal found Jean-Claude sweating profusely and studying his watch. “What’s the situation?” he asked his son.

“The guards walked by fi ve minutes ago,” Jean-Claude said, his voice cracking with tension. “They should be around the corner of the building by now.”

Marchal nodded and pulled the door open.

At his post on the hill, Richard was worried. The guards and the dog had again rounded the northeast corner of the building without noticing either the missing lock or the slit in the fence.

But instead of continuing on to the south, they stopped and one guard unbuttoned his long, gray coat, handing the dog’s leash to his partner. Richard cursed under his breath as he watched the man undo the fl y of his trousers.

He looked back to the building and saw the door slide open. Marchal’s group started fi led out and moved along the side of the building. He wanted to scream at them but couldn’t without alerting the guards. He grabbed the handle of the Bren gun and swung it around, aiming at the two Germans. He released the safety and waited, holding his breath.